Chapter Thirty-Three: A Heartfelt Escort

Yi Ruo had made up her mind to head for Lijiang and join Chen Tianyu in searching for Xiao Su. This time, she was clearly resolved.

Coincidentally, Qianya Ryoko was also planning to go back, and she voiced no objection.

As for Yi Ruo’s Aimi, upon hearing that she would be leaving with Chen Tianyu, the old woman fell into an odd silence. She had met him only once, yet for some reason she trusted him so completely. Perhaps, as the Living Buddha had said, everything was fated.

In truth, it was the wisdom, experience, and discernment of the older generation that formed the real foundation of such trust.

The four of them did not leave Lugu Lake particularly early. By the time Liu Zichen had finished breakfast, taken her motion-sickness medicine, checked out, and gathered her luggage, it was already past ten in the morning. If they waited for a bus after that, no one knew when they would reach Lijiang. Chen Tianyu, leading the three women, was beginning to worry.

Unexpectedly, the matter turned out to be no matter at all. Yi Ruo’s family actually owned a rather fine sedan, and Yi Ruo herself was the driver. That instantly made travel much easier.

Only then did Chen Tianyu realize that Yi Ruo was, in fact, a thoroughly modern woman. For all the plainness of Aimi’s grandmother’s house, they were by no means short of money. In recent years, with tourism booming, Yi Ruo, as one of Lugu Lake’s shining symbols, naturally earned no small income.

They had simply grown accustomed to a modest way of living and had no desire for extravagance in that regard. As for buying a car, that had been Yi Ruo’s own idea. Though it was not used often, a girl always has her preferences, and there was no reason for her family to object.

Once inside the private car, Liu Zichen soon fell asleep. Yi Ruo drove slowly and steadily, so she did not suffer from motion sickness, and the medicine instead made her drowsy.

Qianya Ryoko sat in the front passenger seat, while Chen Tianyu kept Liu Zichen company in the back, so there was not much conversation. Perhaps infected by Liu Zichen’s sleepiness, Chen Tianyu himself grew hazy and half-asleep.

He had not been sleeping well these past few days.

The car slowly pulled to a stop by the roadside, though Chen Tianyu and Liu Zichen were still asleep.

By the side of the road, a middle-aged woman was waving them down, a child in tow, her persistence almost touching. She looked rather pitiful, probably hoping for a lift. Yi Ruo was kind-hearted and could not bear to drive past at full speed, so she decided to stop and ask. Although Qianya Ryoko did not care much for the idea, she did not object.

Yi Ruo lowered the window and exchanged a few words with the woman, but unfortunately no one could understand what the woman was saying, and she spoke quickly and anxiously.

Qianya Ryoko frowned. “What is she saying?”

Although she had lived for a time by Lashi Lake, Japanese was her mother tongue, and she could not easily make sense of the Naxi language.

Yi Ruo shook her head gently. “She’s speaking Naxi. All I understood was that she wants to go to Lijiang. The rest I couldn’t make out.”

“Then maybe let her flag down another car,” Qianya Ryoko said, turning in her seat to glance at the two still asleep, unwilling to create unnecessary trouble.

Yi Ruo nodded and tried to refuse in a few brief words of Naxi, but to everyone’s surprise, the little boy beside the woman suddenly burst into loud tears and clung to his mother in a tantrum. He seemed to want to go home. The middle-aged woman looked helpless, her face dark with embarrassment.

Seeing that the woman showed no sign of leaving, Yi Ruo looked once more toward Qianya Ryoko, as if she herself had been the one wronged.

Qianya Ryoko sighed. “You really are too softhearted and too kind. If you go on like this, you’re bound to suffer for it sooner or later. Fine, fine... what am I supposed to do with you?”

Then she frowned. “But there’s no room like this either. She has a child with her.”

Yi Ruo looked somewhat lost, wanting to help but unable to think what to do. Fortunately, Liu Zichen stirred awake at that moment. After hearing the situation, she, as always considerate and easygoing, immediately said she did not mind. Since the child could not sit in the front passenger seat, she would hold him.

The middle-aged woman kept thanking them profusely, murmuring words no one could understand.

Yet the little boy proved remarkably ungrateful. He refused to be separated from his mother no matter what. After a round of commotion, the only solution was to seat both mother and son in the back. Liu Zichen and Qianya Ryoko also moved to the back, and Chen Tianyu was shaken awake and sent to the front passenger seat, because with his broad frame there was no way the back could accommodate him.

With everyone packed in as best they could be, the sedan set off again. No one said a word.

By then, Chen Tianyu was already fully awake. He did not sleep again, but quietly observed the Naxi woman through the rearview mirror. He noticed that her facial features were somewhat similar to those of the people he had met before, though beyond that she seemed entirely ordinary.

On such a barren mountain road, meeting a local who needed a ride was nothing unusual at all. But that was not what Chen Tianyu was thinking about.

What occupied his mind was perhaps the Great Vehicle teachings and the Living Buddha. He realized he knew almost nothing about that world. Long ago, he had once read books about pilgrimages and heard that the coming-of-age rite for Tibetan youths was a pilgrimage to the Potala Palace in Lhasa, where they had to proceed by kneeling all the way, measuring the earth with their bodies. The journey could take months.

To be honest, at first he had not believed it. If the distance were short, that would be one thing, but if it stretched for several hundred kilometers, how terrifying a journey would that be? Nor had he ever heard any news of roads to Lhasa being closed because so many pilgrims were lying prostrate along them. So he had always regarded it as a rumor, or perhaps a relic of history, something belonging to the age before modern transportation.

Yet during these days lingering by Lugu Lake, he had suddenly felt as though he were being guided by some unseen force. It was a strange and subtle sensation. There was no fixed form, no special ritual, yet within the smallest details there always seemed to be traces of the Living Buddha. These people who lived in a paradise apart from the world seemed to be interpreting the meaning of pilgrimage through everything they said and did.

Something of that sort existed in Yi Ruo and in her Aimi. If he had to explain his sudden attraction, it was not simply because Yi Ruo was beautiful, but because her singular temperament stirred his curiosity.

He had always been an extraordinarily curious man, though never a lewd one.

As he pondered silently, the child in the back began crying again. The two young women helped soothe him, while Yi Ruo watched with calm, focused eyes. She did not resemble at all an unmarried young girl waiting for marriage. If this had been in another city, among another group of people, anyone would have been irritated, or at least frowned.

But Yi Ruo remained serene, even wearing a faint smile, a smile that came from the heart, as though the child were her own.

During the journey, the child would cry every hour or so. After all, the road was long, and however slowly they drove, mountain roads were still rough. The women soothed him back and forth until the little boy, likely exhausted, finally fell asleep. Only then did the three sweat-soaked women in the back breathe a little easier.

More than an hour later, they had entered the city. They dropped the mother and child at an intersection, and the middle-aged woman merely pressed her palms together in a respectful bow before quietly leaving.

By then it was evening. Chen Tianyu and the others were preparing to find a hotel for the night, but Qianya Ryoko suggested inviting them to stay at the Lashi Lake horse caravan instead. The two of them had a deep impression of that place, and readily agreed. After all, nothing was urgent at the moment, and Liu Zichen was already thinking about finding another chance to ride the wooden boats, listen to love songs, and eat Dongba fish.

Qianya Ryoko seemed to see through her thoughts and said with a smile, “Tomorrow happens to be Yi Ruo’s birthday. I’ll take you all boating at Lashi Lake.”

Yi Ruo beamed like a child. “Wonderful, wonderful. I still want to go horseback riding too.”

Having been cooped up for so long, and at last having escaped from home, she naturally let her true nature run free. That made the others laugh out loud.